The infantile personality cannot achieve stable inner full-value because it cannot connect with its reference pattern. However, the reference pattern existing in the psyche is supported by the illusion that it will eventually become a reality, leading to true, sustainable full-value. As long as this reference is not reached, which is always the case, the basic state of the ouroboric personality is inner inferiority. Against this backdrop of persistent inner inferiority, there are oscillations between ouroboric superiority and ouroboric vulnerability. Which state dominates at any given moment depends on who the individual compares themselves with – if they compare themselves with someone they perceive as worse, they feel superior; if they compare themselves with someone they perceive as better, they feel vulnerable.
For example, if a woman fantasizes about being beautiful, rich, having high social status, and being popular with men, her illusory dream will be to «own» a man of status and wealth who will fulfill all her desires, like a «goldfish». She believes that by uniting with this ideal self from her dreams, she will find inner full-value and become «happy». This woman will experience euphoria from receiving money, praise, attention, and sympathy, or even better, from falling in love with a high-status man. These experiences help her achieve a state of superiority, which her psyche labels as «happiness». What each person considers «happiness» depends on the ideal scenario of their life, i.e., their reference pattern.
In this example, «unhappiness» for the woman is labeled as rejection by a high-status person, loss of money, attention, or sympathy from someone who does not meet her status criteria, obvious loss in status and success to others, and aging. These experiences plunge her into vulnerability and distance her from her reference pattern. This is why there is often such an attachment to appearance – it is clear that a young and beautiful woman has more chances to attract the desired man, while an aging woman losing her beauty has fewer chances.
Both «happiness» and «unhappiness» are illusions. Everyone has their own illusion, their own idea of ideality, which defines what is considered «full-value» and felt as superiority and «happiness». At the other end of this axis is "inferiority," and everything that immerses one there is perceived as "unhappiness".